Chapter 9 Jionni
Jionni
The door clicks shut behind me, and the sound is the end of the world.
For a second, I just stand there, frozen in the hallway. I stare at his door like an idiot. Like if I wait long enough, he'll open it and take it all back. But it's just a door. A stupid, institutional door with his name printed on a neat, laminated tag. Toby Song-Gi, Resident Advisor.
My hand lifts on its own, fingers curling into a fist, ready to bang on the wood. To beg. To plead.
Pathetic.
I drop my hand and turn away. My boots are too loud on the linoleum, each step an echoing accusation in the dead quiet of the hallway. Each step drags like I'm walking through concrete.
I don't remember taking the stairs to the roof. One moment I'm in the suffocating hallway, the next the cold night air is hitting my face like a slap, raw and biting.
The whole campus spreads out below me. Lights in windows, people living their lives. None of them are falling apart on a rooftop.
I walk to the low parapet at the edge and sit, letting my legs dangle over the five-story drop. The wind whips at my hair. Somewhere below me, in one of those glowing squares, Toby is choosing his future. Over me.
"So I could throw it all away for an alpha I met a few days ago?"
His words are a jagged knife twisting in my gut. He's right. That's all it's been since he showed up at my door, all righteous indignation and a clipboard, ready to write me up. Since the world stopped spinning on its axis and decided to revolve around him instead.
Two days to find him. Two days to lose him.
A harsh, broken laugh rips out of me, swallowed by the wind.
This is exactly what I always knew would happen.
This is the punchline to the universe's cruelest joke.
I spent my whole life seeing the trap, vowing I'd never get caught in the same "fated mates" bullshit that turned my parents into monsters.
And yet here I am. Wrecked by a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and a rulebook. My hands are shaking. I clench them into fists, digging my nails into my palms until the sting is sharp and real.
I knew better. I saw it. I swore that would never be me.
My father's face swims in my memory. The last time I saw him, he was sitting in a dark living room, surrounded by empty bottles, blaming my mother for leaving. Blaming fate. Blaming anything but the man in the mirror who was too much of a coward to fight for his own family.
And what am I doing? Sitting on a roof, ready to let go, ready to run. Just like him.
The thought hits me like a bucket of ice water.
No.
The word is a silent snarl in my own head. No. I am not him. I will not be him. Running is what he did. Giving up is what he did.
A fire starts in my gut, hot and clean, burning away the self-pity. Toby thinks he has to choose between his future and me. Henderson thinks he's won.
Fuck them both.
I'm on my feet, my boots scraping against the gravel. I'm not running from this. I'm running toward it. I grab my guitar and head for the door, a new purpose thrumming through me, sharper and clearer than any chord I've ever played.
My room is a disaster, but for once, I don't see the chaos. I see a war room.
I flip open my laptop, the blue light burning my eyes in the darkness, casting weird shadows across the walls.
The university website is a labyrinth of bureaucratic bullshit, a poorly composed symphony of conflicting rules and dead-end links.
I'm not a scholar, I'm a musician. But this is just another kind of composition.
I'm hunting for the one loophole, the one dissonant chord in their perfect harmony of bullshit that I can exploit. Each policy is a measure, each clause a note. I'm searching for the one wrong note that will bring the whole fucking thing crashing down.
Hours blur. I mainline coffee until my hands shake and my vision blurs, but I don't stop.
I read through page after page of legalese, the words swimming in front of my eyes.
I drink coffee until it tastes like burnt metal and my eyes burn.
The university website is a maze of bureaucratic bullshit, but I keep clicking.
My room is buried in paper—printouts highlighted in angry yellow, notes scribbled in the margins.
Around 4 AM, I hit a wall. Every path leads to a dead end. The RA handbook is an ironclad fortress. For a second, despair claws at me again, cold and sharp. Then I remember. The gossip. Wes and Braiden. They went up against the university when some rival was harassing Braiden, and they won.
My fingers are already dialing Braiden's number, which I'd gotten from a mutual friend weeks ago for a study group that never happened. He answers on the third ring, his voice thick and blurry with sleep.
"Jionni? Is everything okay? It's four in the morning."
"No. I need your help. You and Wes... you fought the school. And won. How?"
There's a rustle of blankets, and then a muffled, grumpy growl in the background that can only be Wes Chambers. "Brai? Who the hell is calling?"
"Shh, go back to sleep," Braiden murmurs, his voice momentarily turned away from the phone. "It's important." He comes back, his voice clearer now. "Okay, I'm listening. What happened?"
"Henderson has him," I say, the words scraped raw from my throat. "He's making Toby choose between me and his scholarship. I'm looking for a weapon in the rules, a way to fight back, and I can't find it."
"Where are you looking?" Braiden asks, his voice instantly sharp and focused. The sleepy omega is gone, replaced by the brilliant mind that aced every class he took.
"The RA handbook. Housing policies. It's a goddamn fortress."
"Wrong place," he says instantly. "That's the trap. They want you to look there, in the employment rules. You need to look under the university-wide 'Student Accommodations' policies. It's not about his job; it's about his rights as an omega. Check for anything related to bonded pairs."
The background growl gets louder. "Give me the phone, Brai."
"Wes, no, he needs tactical advice, not a pep talk—"
There's a sound of a minor scuffle, and then Wes's voice, low and hard as granite, comes on the line. "Alarie. It's Wes."
"Chambers," I acknowledge, my own alpha instincts rising to meet his.
"Stop thinking so hard," he says, his voice a low command.
"Braiden's right. Find the rule. But when you find it, you don't ask, you don't negotiate.
You walk into that meeting and you ram it down their throats.
You make it clear that this isn't a request, it's a notification of how things are going to be. "
"I plan on it," I growl.
"Good," Wes says. "And if the board gives you any shit, you call me. The university doesn't like it when their star quarterback starts asking pointed questions about Title IX compliance and potential discrimination suits. I'll make a few calls. Remind them how bad that looks for fundraising."
A jolt goes through me—not just from the information, but from the backup. The unspoken promise. You are not alone in this fight.
"Thanks," I manage to say.
"Don't thank me," he grunts. "Just handle your shit. Protect your mate."
The phone is handed back. "Sorry about him," Braiden says, his voice soft again. "He gets... territorial. Even for other people."
"It's fine," I say, and for the first time, it feels true. "Braiden. Thank you. Seriously."
"Of course," he says, his voice warm with genuine empathy. "He's one of us now. You both are. Just get your omega back."
He hangs up.
Get your omega back.
The words echo in my head, a command and a promise. I dive back into the website, following Braiden's directions. Student Accommodations. It takes me less than twenty minutes. Buried deep in a sub-menu no one's probably clicked on since the nineties, I find it.
Section 7.3 of the Westbridge University Housing Policy: "Accommodations for Bonded Pairs."
"In accordance with federal guidelines, Westbridge University recognizes the unique nature of alpha/omega bonded pairs and will make reasonable accommodations to ensure the wellbeing of such pairs, including but not limited to housing reassignments…
and, where applicable, modifications to professional responsibilities that might otherwise create a conflict of interest.. ."
I read the words again. A third time. It's real. Black and white. A lifeline.
Henderson can't force Toby to choose. It's against their own fucking rules. It's against the law. He played his hand, and I just found the ace up my sleeve.
I print the page, the printer spitting it out with a satisfying whir. I keep digging, finding precedents, other cases, anything that can bolster my argument. Each new piece of information is another weapon. Another reason for Toby to believe that we can have everything.
By the time the sun is fully up, cutting harsh lines of light across the disaster of my room, I have a plan. I should be dead on my feet after being up all night, riding a roller coaster from rock bottom to maybe, just maybe, having a shot. But I've never been more awake. More sure.
So this is what it's like. Fighting for something real.
I pull out my phone. 7:36 AM. The housing board meets at 10. Just enough time.
My hands are shaking, but not from caffeine anymore. It's adrenaline. Fear. A terrifying, exhilarating certainty. For the first time in my life, I know exactly what I'm doing.
This is it. Not the guitar in my hands, or the next party, or the next fight. Him. Us. This is what I was made for.
I pull up Toby's contact, my thumb hovering over the screen. I type out the message, each word a vow. I hit send. The single word Delivered appears underneath. I shove my phone in my pocket without waiting for a reply and pull the one decent shirt I own from the back of my closet.
Time to go to war.